Tag: Laura Nicholson

CagePotato HQ received some incredible news yesterday from our dear friend Laura “angrylittlefeet” Nicholson — who you’ve supported with your cash and kind words during her treatment for Hodgkins Lymphoma this year. Check out the update she sent us (after a celebratory margarita), and show her some love on twitter and Facebook!

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Hey there my fellow Taters! Many of you have been with me throughout my fight against cancer so I wanted to share the news with you all…

ALF defeats Hodgkins Lymphoma via KTFO rd 3!

I had a PET scan on Tuesday and just got results back and it was good as it could be. All my nodes are fine now and all internal organs are back to normal — no more swelling is present. Just some scar tissue from the lung surgery but that’s to be expected. Now I just go back in 4 months for a follow up scan and if all is still well they cut me loose except for semi annual checkups.

Greetings Taters! It’s been a while since I’ve checked in so I thought I’d take a few moments and let you guys know what has been going on in Alf-Land. My schedule hasn’t changed much. Still chemo every two weeks followed by that lovely Neulasta shot that never fails to make me feel like complete and utter shit for a few days. On the in-between weeks I go to have my chemo port flushed and they run more blood work. I have good days and not so good days just like anybody else who’s fighting this battle with cancer.

It’s been kind of good news / bad news lately. Let me explain.

Good News: My Doc feels that I have been responding really well to my treatments and wanted to do a CT scan to check progress since it’s been almost six months now.

Bad News: The hospital refused to do the scan because I cannot pay for it and all my attempts to get any financial help are still “pending”.*

Good News: (And this is really keeping a long, tortuous story short here) The awesome lady in charge of my cancer center was finally able to knock some heads together and get them to agree to do this one more scan.

Good Good News: Scan showed that while the cancer is not gone yet — I am winning this fight!

So, I woke up this morning and found out that an Australian dude named Nicholas Troy donated $1,719 in the last hour of the official donation drive, bringing our total up to an even five grand. It’s a damn miracle. We did it. Thank you, Nicholas — we’ll never be able to say that enough, but we’re blown away by your generosity. Thanks so much for making this happen.

And fourth place, earning “whatever we have left,” is pumpkinking11, who donated $150.

We’ll be in touch with all you guys soon — as well as with all the folks who pledged $50 and have a CagePotato t-shirt coming their way — to get your mailing info and start sending out the prizes. Thanks so much to everybody who kicked in some money, or helped spread the word on Facebook and Twitter. And please follow Laura Nicholson on twitter @angrylittlefeet, where she’ll continue to update us on her battle against Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Love y’all.

Can you believe it, ‘Taters? As I write this there are only four days left in our Fight for Alf campaign. Time flies. Whether you’re having fun or not, apparently.

Anyway this will most likely be my last update. Therefore I want to say a huge Thank You one last time to every single one of you who were able to donate a little something and also to everybody who has been behind me this whole time with kindness and words of encouragement. (The haters and the spammers can eat a bag of dicks.)

Everybody knows that cancer sucks. Bad. It completely changes your life whether you like it or not. That being the case, I have decided to end this last update with some positive things that have come from this situation.

* The ‘ice cream rx’. I can’t seem to keep my weight above 95lbs. Therefore I have been given carte blanche to eat whatever I want whenever I want. I love ice cream and chocolate and treats. And soft pretzels at 2 in the morning. This most definitely does not suck.

* My day starts when I goddam well feel like it. When I was able to work I was up every day promptly at 5 am. No longer getting paid…That shit ain’t happening. It brings great joy to look at the clock around 8am, tell said clock to go fuck itself, roll over and go back to sleep.

Sup Taters? It’s me again with another update. Since I last wrote something to you guys I’ve had my next chemo. Yes the hair is gone. No…I cannot talk about that. I fucking look like Yoda. Enough said.

The shot from the day after chemo, Neulasta, was one mean bitch. I’ve been hobbling around all this week like an old dog with bad hips and arthritis. But…that bitch of a shot did its job! Its purpose was to help my bone marrow produce the white blood cells that I need to fight the disease. I was back to the hospital Monday and my blood work came back all good! That means that for the very first time since treatment started — my white blood cells are holding their own! No transfusion needed this time! I still have a long road ahead but this is a very encouraging sign.

On a crappier note — now my goddam eyelashes are falling out. You know how annoying it is when an eyelash falls out and you need to dig it out of your eye? Now imagine that 10 or more times a day. What a freakin pain in my ass. Of course you know the hair on my legs continues to need to be shaved. Some shit just ain’t fair at all.

Have a good weekend my Taters. I have no Dr. appointments till next week, so I plan to as well.

Alf

PS: If anybody wants to buy me a beer…I’m allowed to have one or two again now

A month ago, we asked you guys to pledge some of your MMA memorabilia to our ongoing “Fight for ALF” fundraising efforts. And while that plea sort of fell on deaf ears — I guess you’re not the obsessed hoarders we thought you were? — two more members of the CP writing staff have stepped up to add some items to the pile. Read on for descriptions of the items, details on what you need to do to get them, and a new update from angrylittlefeet herself.

I was going through some boxes I packed a while back and I found this stuff. A framed signed Georges St. Pierre picture, a GSP action figure from UFC 87 and two Mint Topps UFC GSP cards. One is a “fighter gear relic card” that has a fabric swatch of GSP’s man panties or jock strap or something. The other is a “fight mat relic card” that has a piece of the octagon mat from UFC 100. So long as nobody takes a black light to the photo, all the items are in great shape. Granted, I will play TAPS and cry watching these items go but I already have the life-sized cardboard cut-out of Georges that I shower with and anything I can do to help Laura — I am willing.

This week’s Alf update brought to you by Hodgkins Lymphoma……. Still NOT recommended as a diet aid.

Hi Taters! Alf here. Finally have a day between hospital visits to sit down and relax. And eat. At my last visit my Doc said I had lost entirely too much weight (I blame hospital food and boredom) and my job is to put some back on by any means necessary. Fast. Next operation is Monday, next chemo is Tuesday. He even went so far as to say he wants me eating cake and ice cream. Wait — Really? So now I have kind of a dr’s rx for cake & ice cream. Sweet! Now I just need my backwards-ass state to get on the medical weed bandwagon…..

Monday’s procedure is to have my chemo port installed. Somehow I don’t think a body was ever meant to have anything “installed” but what the hell do I know? Also they will remove this god-forsaken PICC line that has been driving my nuts and dangling from my arm since forever it seems. Oh I do hope I won’t need to be awake for all this festivity but I probably will. They seem to be pretty stingy with the sleepy time drugs.

They tell me that the second chemo is when the hair starts to go if it’s going to. Shit. shitshitshitshitfuckshitshit. Really, really bad girl-trauma on the horizon.

That’s it at this point. Just looking to get through next week and then go from there. One fucking thing at a time.

Hope you all have a great 4th of July. Have a beer for me and try not to blow off any goddam limbs or digits.

Alf here with an update on the fun ride that the past week or so has been.

First off, the PET scan was no big deal after all. They just shoot me up with some radioactive crap and then stick me in a dark room for about an hour while this works its way thru my system. From there it’s into a big ole scanner that makes some noise & moves around but is really pretty comfy. Again they say don’t move. So…sounds like two medically prescribed naps to me. I can handle this. Pretty much same deal with the CAT scan. Just waiting around for the radioactive stuff to work it’s way thru. Sadly, so far no Ninja Turtle skills have been acquired.

On to the bad news. Scans showed a lot of fluid built up around my lungs and heart. So off to the ER for that to be dealt with. They of course admitted me immediately. This was last Monday. They drained my lungs that night and I felt a whole lot better. But of course that shit just built right back up. Then they put a chest tube in to drain. What fun. Next day the tube came out and the villagers rejoiced. Not for long though. At this point they shipped me off to a second hospital to have the fluid around my heart taken care of. Now in this modern day of technology you’d think they’d have some way to use a small tube thru your arm pit or something. Oh no sir! Five 1/2 hour wait and then they bring out a needle which they proceed to jam into my chest. They don’t put you to sleep for this either, by the way.

And look, not to prey on your sympathies or anything, but Laura ain’t in the best shape right now. Two nights ago, she was admitted to the ER due to fluid in her lungs and around her heart. (“Still trying to hang tough guys. I’ll let you all know as soon as i get paroled.”)

Here’s what I suggest. The next time you go out to a bar/club/concert/MMA event, buy your friend Laura a drink. And by that I mean, visit our “Fight for ALF” Indiegogo page and donate the cost of that drink to our cause, via PayPal or credit/debit card. Even if you can only afford a $2 PBR, Laura will eGuzzle that thing in spirit, with gratitude, from her hospital bed.

Thanks so much for listening, and please donate today if you haven’t yet. After all, we would do the same for you.

So far, our only incentives for donation — besides the warm feeling you get from helping a human being who deserves it — have been CagePotato t-shirts for a $50 pledge, and a vague promise of a cam-show from BG or Karma to whoever donates a thousand bucks. (Still looking for our first rich pervert.) But me and Jason Moles came up with a much better idea the other day. Basically, it goes like this…

- If you have any cool MMA memorabilia that you’re willing to part with (signed posters, rare videos, fight-worn gear, etc.), email bgoldstein@breakmedia.com with a description of the item and a photo if possible.
- After a week or so, we’ll pick out the ten best submissions, and rank them in order based on quality. Special thanks to Moles for submitting the first item, a UFC 127 program ”autographed by Punkass, KenFlo, Arianny [I think], Palmer and a few of the fighters from that card.”
- At the end of our 60-day fundraising drive, these ten pieces of MMA memorabilia will be awarded as prizes to the top donors, in order of the size of their donations.

So: If you have some killer MMA artifacts to donate, let me know. And if you haven’t kicked in a few bucks to CagePotato’s Fight for ALF yet, please do so right here. Keep in mind that the leading donation is currently $500, which came from a giant-hearted member of the MMA industry who wishes to remain anonymous. (But we know who this person is, and dude, we can’t tell you how much that meant to us.)